


Gentlemen's Agreement

by margdean56



Series: Tower Mountain/New Hope stories [11]
Category: Elfquest
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Peysol, Tower Mountain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/margdean56/pseuds/margdean56
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is the price of innocence?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gentlemen's Agreement

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published as a separate story supplement by Tower Mountain Holt/Hydra's-Head Press

TWR 1178

“The cloth was quite ruined, I’m afraid, my lord—for this purpose at least.” Peysol picked up a corner of the heaped fabric that lay on his linen-covered stone cutting table and drew the cloth through his hands, studying its muddy iron-gray hue. “I should be able to use it for something. Draperies for a storm scene, perhaps. Or possibly an outfit for Razmak—he’d never notice.” There was a mischievous glint in the clothier’s brilliant blue eyes as he glanced up at the tall, golden-haired elf seated in one of the carved wooden chairs near the table. He could not tell whether or not his mild gibe at the absentminded geometer sparked any answering amusement in Lord Tyaar. He shrugged, letting the cloth and the jest drop. “Obviously it is not the correct shade for your robe. But there is a bright side.” Peysol straightened from where he had been leaning against the table’s edge and smiled. “Kela and I realized that the quicker absorption of dye means we can now produce the blue you most favor in three days instead of the usual eight. A fortunate accident, as it turned out.”

“Indeed.” The expression on Tyaar’s high-boned face was one of grave interest. That, Peysol thought with a touch of relief, was an improvement over the icy mood in which the Tower Lord had entered his workroom a short time before. The chill had been almost as palpable as the Coldtime air outside that made Peysol’s human assistants into walking bundles of woolens when they arrived in the morning and left at night.

The clothier was not sure what had caused Tyaar’s displeasure. It might have to do with the party his lord had hosted for the Declared last night. Peysol had been invited, but was forced to tender his regrets; preparations for the upcoming Midwinter Feast were keeping him too busy to socialize. He thought Jilleen might have been talking about the affair to Kela this morning. He had heard the lithe hawkrider’s conspiratorial tones coming from Kela’s workroom when he stopped by to consult the dyer about “the blue” (as the two of them called it), but she fell abruptly silent when he entered, then started chattering about wine in a slightly louder tone than necessary. That was a sure sign of juicy gossip. Not that Peysol felt any urge to pry; he was content to let gossip come to him, as it usually did in time along with most of the inhabitants of Tower Mountain. Any incident that affected the lord of the Tower so noticeably could not remain secret for long. No need to dig for it, and certainly no need to question Tyaar himself about it. It was probably best not to mention it as long as his lord was around.

While Peysol was explaining the new dye process to Lord Tyaar, Leravie came in, carrying a painted parchment. “Here it is at last. I had to go through half the pigeonholes to find it.”

Peysol looked up and smiled at his lovemate, then gave her a quick squeeze as she came to his side. “Thank you, beloved. Your diligence is appreciated. Here is the design for your cloak, my lord.” He unrolled the parchment and gave it to Lord Tyaar, adding, “The technique is a more sophisticated version of quilting.”

Tyaar glanced up from the parchment and lifted an eyebrow at the wardrobe master. “Do you intend to dress me in a bedspread, Peysol?”

Peysol chuckled. “Hardly, my lord. But this method gives us the sheen of silk while retaining the weight and sweep of a heavier fabric. Piecing together the pattern gives each separate color its full brilliance, as well as allowing us to layer the design. The three-dimensional effect should be quite striking.”

“I trust so.” The two of them discussed the design for awhile longer, Leravie looking on with her chin on Peysol’s shoulder. Finally Lord Tyaar rose and handed the rolled parchment back to Peysol. “For the moment I am satisfied, Peysol.” His voice and stance had taken on the oh-so-slightly exaggerated imperiousness Peysol knew so well, his words ringing clearly across the workroom. “But mark me well—I shall have little patience with any more blunders. In three days I shall return to inspect the new batch of blue. Three days! If it is not ready by then—” The Tower Lord paused for dramatic emphasis. “—I shall bid Dantum set his largest cauldron aboil and have you lowered into it—fully dressed, mind you, in a particularly exquisite creation of your own—one fingerbreadth at a time.” Tyaar drew out the last few words of his pronouncement as if savoring them.

Peysol assumed a scandalized expression. “What a terrible thing to do to good clothing! I shall certainly endeavor to avoid such a fate, my lord.”

“See that you do.” The Tower Lord turned and, with an almost visible flourish, swept from the room.

Peysol glanced over to see Leravie staring after Tyaar with a slightly apprehensive frown. “Worried, my love?” he queried lightly.

She shook her head, the line between her dark brown eyes deepening. “It’s not that. It wasn’t only looking for the parchment that took me so long. I ran into Kiriel on the way back and she told me something that happened at Lord Tyaar’s party last night. I think you’d better know. It’s about Winken…”

 

Unbeknownst to either of the pair, the object of their concern stood flattened to the wall outside the doorway of his father’s workroom. Winken stared with wide, frightened blue eyes after the stately receding figure of Lord Tyaar, who had swept by without taking any notice of him. The murmured conversation from the workroom made no impression on the young dancer. The errand that brought him here was forgotten. All Winken could hear was the echo of the Tower Lord’s stern injunction, ringing out into the hallway through the parted curtain of the workroom. _In three days I shall return to inspect the new batch of blue. Three days! If it is not ready by then—_ And afterwards the threat, the promise of execution by slow torture. Winken’s heart pounded. The image of Dantum’s huge black iron cauldron rose before his mind’s eye, crouching over the flames like some malevolent monster. The volatile master chef had once threatened to drop a four-turns-old Winken into it, when the rambunctious child interfered with his work once too often.

The youth had heard such threats from Lord Tyaar before, of course. Almost every commission Tyaar gave to Peysol was hung about with them. Long ago, Peysol had explained to his bewildered and frightened young son that the threats were a joke, a private game between the Tower Lord and himself. In those days it seemed easy to believe, for the lord of Tower Mountain was good and kindly. But things were different now. Winken closed his eyes and shuddered, remembering last night’s party.

He had been requested to dance for the affair moons before. Mikail had accordingly choreographed a solo for him to one of Ceyte’s compositions. Winken was proud and happy to be so honored and worked long and hard on the dance. He was almost sure it was through no fault of his own that halfway through the piece he had suddenly found himself spinning uncontrollably through the air, to land with a thump practically in Doleera’s lap.

Certainly the flight leader had been ready for him. Before he could open his mouth to apologize she exclaimed, “Why, Winken, I didn’t know you cared!” and hooked a shapely ankle around his. Winken saw the satisfied gleam in her green eyes as she reached for him, just before he was jerked out of her grasp and found himself hanging in midair.

“That, Doleera beloved, lacked a certain finesse,” came Jand’s disapproving voice from nearby, “as well as a proper respect for consummate art.” Winken felt himself begin to drift toward the black-haired glider, held by Jand’s levitating power. He was still too disoriented to focus his own Talent and try to break away.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jand,” Doleera said austerely. “Is it my fault if the poor boy tripped? It’s a good thing I was here to catch him, or he might have hurt himself.” A suppressed smirk dimpled the corner of her mouth, complemented by the angry glint in her eye. “In any case, you are a fine one to talk about subtlety. Or do you expect us to believe he’s gliding into your arms?” Starting up from her couch, she made a sudden grab for Winken, and simultaneously sent the contents of her goblet straight for Jand’s face. The youth heard Jand splutter. Then he tumbled to the floor as the glider’s immaterial grip on him loosened. Doleera reached for Winken again. 

All at once she reeled back with a cry of pain. Jand echoed her as a mind-shattering sending swept the room. **That will be enough!** Lord Tyaar’s face was a mask of cold fury, his eyes slits of burning blue as he stood over Winken, looking from Jand to Doleera and back again. **How dare you disrupt my entertainment in this way? Do so again and you may become the entertainment.** The painful implication in the antihealer’s sending was clear. The ice-blue eyes turned on Winken. “You may begin again.”

Begin again? Winken was trembling so hard he found it difficult even to stand up. Fortunately Mikail came to his rescue, appearing at the youth’s side to help him to his feet. “I’m afraid he can’t, my lord,” the choreographer said, with a glare of his own in Doleera’s direction. “Once concentration is so thoroughly broken, it cannot be regained all at once. Perhaps another time.”

Tyaar’s nephew was probably the only elf in the Tower, with the possible exception of Beliel, Tyaar’s second in command, who could have gotten away with gainsaying the Tower Lord at that moment. Tyaar glared at both dancers for several heartbeats, then nodded. “You may go,” he told Winken in a low, controlled voice.

“Th-thank you, my lord,” Winken managed to gasp out, and fled, his mind quivering with the image of Lord Tyaar’s anger.

Tyaar was angry. Tyaar was still angry; Winken had heard the whispers at dance practice this morning. No one knew what he might do in his anger. Now Tyaar had done something—he had threatened Peysol with death if his commands were not obeyed. True, he had done so many times before. Each time, Peysol presumably fulfilled his expectations, for none of the dire sentences were ever carried out. But this time it was different. This time Lord Tyaar had asked for the impossible.

Winken was not a weaver, but he was the son of a weaver. Over so many eights-of-eights it was unavoidable that certain pieces of knowledge had sunk in. Winken knew perfectly well that the dyeing process for Lord Tyaar’s favorite blue took no less than eight days, sometimes longer depending on the fabric. He had heard his father cursing the fact often enough! To ask for the blue within three days was to give Peysol an order that could not be fulfilled. If it was not fulfilled—

It had to be a joke. It had to be. Yet Winken could not be sure. The gentle lord who made a jest of playing the tyrant was gone; this the youth knew in his heart. The present lord of Tower Mountain was fully capable of carrying out his threat, if such was his desire. Tyaar was angry, and there was no knowing what he might do in his anger…

For a moment Winken glanced toward the doorway of the workroom. He might ask Peysol … no. Leravie was in there; he could hear her talking to his father, her voice low and apprehensive. Though he could not make out the words, their tone was not reassuring. Besides, if it was a joke, he didn’t want her laughing at him. He would find out for himself. Turning, Winken hurried down the corridor after the vanished Tower Lord.

 

Lord Tyaar sat in a secluded corner of the main Tower garden, his seat a thickset bush molded into a chair by treeshaper magic long ago. Vine-laden branches shaded him from the wintry sunlight filtering through the clearstone windows; velvety green moss provided a cushion for his feet. A dish of out-of-season fresh fruit stood at his elbow, another product of treeshaper magic brought by an obsequious human servant. But for the moment Lord Tyaar ignored it. His chin resting on one long hand, he brooded.

Talking with Peysol had taken his mind off last night for awhile, and their old but no less relished joke had lightened his mood. Yet his anger still smoldered within. How dared they, those two, spoil his meticulously planned soirée with their brawling? Up till now, Tyaar had watched Jand and Doleera’s little war over Winken with detached amusement. Each wanted to be the one to initiate Peysol’s improbably innocent younger son into the joys of horizontal dancing. Their rivalry combined with the youth’s natural skittishness had kept either of them, or anyone else for that matter, from succeeding. Over the turns their schemes grew ever more elaborate and daring. But this time they had gone too far. Declared and among his favored they might be, but there were limits to what Tyaar would put up with. He must devise a suitable lesson for them…

Tyaar’s musings were interrupted by a hesitant voice. “My—my lord?” He looked up to see Winken standing before him, at the end of the narrow lawn that ran from his seat to the flagstone path. As soon as the Tower Lord’s gaze fell on him, the slim dancer dropped to one knee in the grass.

“Yes?” Tyaar wondered what the boy was up to. An apology for the night before? There was really no need. The disruption had not been his fault.

Winken raised frightened eyes to Tyaar’s. “I—I heard what you said to Peysol—about the blue. Please, my lord, you have to give him more time! Three days just isn’t enough!”

It took the Tower Lord a heartbeat or two to realize what Winken was talking about. When he did, his immediate reaction was not unlike nostalgia. The youth had once addressed such pleas to Tyaar with fair regularity before it dawned on both Peysol and his lord that Winken really believed Tyaar’s threats and was not just going along with the joke. It was on the tip of Tyaar’s tongue to tell the youth not to be a fool; perhaps to give him the bland rejoinder with which he had answered such requests in the past before Peysol put a stop to them: _I have every confidence in Peysol’s ability to complete the task I have set him … to my utmost satisfaction_ ; perhaps even to grant the plea for reassurance he could read in Winken’s anxious face.

Then all at once an idea came to him, a way to punish Doleera and Jand and at the same time compensate himself for his spoiled entertainment. If Winken truly believed the threat this time, his fear and naïveté could be used to advantage. Tyaar’s eyes narrowed as he studied the kneeling figure before him. “Are you sent as Peysol’s emissary?” he asked ironically.

“Oh, no, my lord!” Winken blurted. “He doesn’t know I’m here. I just overheard… Oh, my lord, you know he’d never ask! He’d rather d—” The youth choked on the last word.

Tyaar thoughtfully finished the sentence for him. “He would rather die than admit to failure or beg for my indulgence.” Winken nodded miserably. “But you,” Tyaar probed, “you would not have your father die.”

“No, my lord,” Winken half whispered.

“Certainly not in so ignoble and painful a fashion. Very well. You ask a favor of me, and on your own behalf, since Peysol himself knows nothing of your suit. You must realize, young Winken, that I am not in the habit of granting favors without return. What have you to offer me?” Winken looked at him, completely at a loss. What, indeed, could a humble dancer offer in exchange to the Lord of Tower Mountain?

The Tower Lord tented his fingers and returned Winken’s gaze coolly. “The favor you ask is time. The return I propose will therefore also be time: one night, to be exact, one night of your presence in my chambers, during which you will serve my pleasure in whatever manner I may request. Five days in exchange for one night is more than generous, I believe. Do you agree?”

Studying the play of emotions across Winken’s face, Tyaar felt certain he would accept the bargain. He allowed his gaze to travel along the graceful lines of the dancer’s lithe body, partly hidden now by the loose tunic he wore over his usual bodysuit, but well remembered from the night before. Yes … Tyaar would teach Jand and Doleera a lesson by taking this tender morsel for himself, out from under their very noses. Who had more right to it, after all, than the lord of Tower Mountain? **Do you agree?** he repeated, holding Winken’s eyes with his own.

**I—I agree, my lord.**

Tyaar permitted himself a small smile of triumph. “It is well. Tomorrow night, then, in my chambers. You need tell no one. Come prepared to perform the dance you were doing last night. We shall begin with that—and this time there will be no interruptions.”

“Yes, my lord. Th-thank you, my lord.”

Tyaar nodded. “You may go.” Winken rose and bowed, then turned and bolted down the path like a frightened hopper. Tyaar’s smile widened as he watched him go. _No escape this time, young Winken._ The Tower Lord reached up and plucked a newly opened blossom from one of the trailing vines above his head. Drinking deeply of its delicate scent, he rose from his seat and paced down the path.

On his way out of the garden, Tyaar paused to regard the entranced treeshaper, Vine, who sat in the midst of it. Her amber eyes were blank, turned within. The great mass of her rich brown hair was entwined in the foliage about her. It was her magic that caused the garden to bloom and bear fruit even in the middle of winter—her power, subject to his will.

“I control all here,” he murmured. “All here is mine, to use as I please. You learned that, did you not, my dear? They all learn.” He tossed the flower onto the grass and, laughing softly, went on his way.

 

“He said he’d meet us on the landing.” Ban’s voice held a concerned note. The jeweler, dressed quietly but well in tunic and hose, with a plain circlet crowning his red-gold hair, was accompanied by a brightly gowned Kaethe. The two of them paused in front of the trio of curtained arches that marked the chambers of Peysol’s family. The centermost and largest was festooned with delicately patterned stone draperies, while the outer two were decorated in a more abstract, if no less ornate style.

The coppery-haired maiden giggled, adjusting the embroidered shawl around her shoulders. “Oh, you know Winken. He can’t keep two thoughts in his head at once. He probably forgot all about it.”

Ban frowned. He did know Winken, better than most, and he knew his friend was not so much of a scatterbrain as all that. It would be like him to “forget” an appointment he did not really want to keep, but not one like this: a small, private gathering held by Winken’s mother, Sharai, to introduce her latest composition. When it was a question of his mother’s music, it would have been more like Winken to be on the Grand Stair before them, dancing with impatience.

The jeweler took a step toward the left-hand arch, which led to Winken’s rooms, but just then Frith came sweeping out of the right-hand arch, resplendent in one-piece and feathered cloak with his long-necked lute under his arm. “Greetings, friends,” Peysol’s elder son said with an ironic salute. “Have you come to bear me company? How kind. Where is Winken? We have a performance to attend.”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. He said he’d meet us on the Stair. I was just going to call for him,” Ban explained. Frith raised an eyebrow and made a “be my guest” gesture with his free hand. **Winken?** Ban sent.

The response was not at all what he expected. Instead of a breezy “Coming!” or “Just a moment!” or even “Come in!”, the jeweler’s mind-call produced a sort of mental yelp of surprise and consternation. This was followed by a hesitant, **Ban?**

**We’re going to Sharai and Frith’s recital, remember?** Ban sent with a touch of exasperation.

**Yes! I mean no! I mean—I can’t come.**

“What?” exclaimed Ban, startled into speech.

Their sendings had been open, and Frith echoed, “What?” Exercising an older brother’s prerogative to ignore the rules of etiquette, the troubadour flung open Winken’s door-curtain and strode into the room beyond. A worried Ban followed. They found Winken peering out at them from the bead-curtained doorway of his bedroom. Instead of the bodysuit and tunic he might have been expected to wear for the recital, the dancer had on the flame-colored tights and filmy draped top he had worn for his performance at Lord Tyaar’s party two nights before. Ban recognized the costume. He had helped Peysol make it; the jeweled clasps fastening it were his work.

“Winken, what’s the matter?” Ban asked before Frith could speak.

“Nothing! I just— Something came up. I can’t go to the recital. Could you—could you apologize to Mother for me?”

“’Something came up!’” Frith mimicked. “Such as?”

Winken’s eyes dropped away from his brother’s penetrating stare. “I can’t tell you. Please just leave me alone.”

Frith opened his mouth to say something, but Ban waved him to silence. Stepping toward Winken, he laid a hand on his arm, catching the younger elf’s blue eyes with his dark ones. **Look, Winken, if you can’t come, you can’t. But if you can look me in the eye and send to me that nothing’s wrong…**

Winken gazed at him wretchedly for a long moment. Finally he repeated, **I can’t tell you, Ban. It’s something I have to do. Please don’t ask me any more.**

Ban let his hand drop. **All right. But if there’s some way I can help—** Winken shook his head. Ban turned to Frith with an apologetic look. “He can’t come.”

Frith rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and shrugged. “Very well, little brother, have it your way. Come on, Ban. Let’s be off before Sharai starts to wonder if I’ve fallen off the Mountain.” He stalked back out into the hall where Kaethe was waiting. Ban looked over his shoulder as he followed, but Winken had already disappeared into his bedroom.

The incident continued to nag at the jeweler as he, Kaethe and Frith descended the Grand Stair toward Sharai’s studio. He maintained a brooding silence while Kaethe chattered gaily, filling Frith in on the latest dance troupe gossip, and avoided as well as he could the occasional meaningful glance from the troubadour. Winken had been really upset, and what was more, frightened. Ban could think of only a handful of people who truly frightened Winken. If Jand or Doleera had cornered him, surely he would have snatched more eagerly than ever at the graceful way out his mother’s recital offered. That left only Beliel, who had never seemed to take any interest in the young dancer. Unless it was—

“Could you two go on without me?” Ban said suddenly. “I just remembered something I have to do. It shouldn’t take long, but don’t wait for me. I’ll sneak in between cantos.”

Kaethe blinked at him and Frith put on a long-suffering expression. “Not you too! Oh, well… Go on, Ban. I’ll make sure Kae gets there, at least.” He added in locksending, **If you find out what’s bothering him, let me know.**

“Thanks, Frith,” Ban answered both the open and the covert communications. Then he hurried back up the Stair as fast as he could go.

 

Once he was sure his friends were safely gone, Winken slipped out of his rooms and headed for the Grand Stair. To his dancing garb he had added a long, hooded cloak, to ward off the chill of the Tower’s stone passages but also as a defense against curious eyes. Though Lord Tyaar’s words, “You need tell no one,” had not been phrased as an order of secrecy, Winken preferred to think of them as such. To his relief he encountered no one he knew well on the darkened Stair; only Jheredd and Rhesa standing on a lamplit balcony, deep in conversation. As Winken passed them, the foppish hawkrider made an illustrative gesture with an elegantly gloved and lace-cuffed hand, which was answered by a reserved smile from the dark-haired elf woman. Neither one spared him a glance as he flitted noiselessly by.

All too soon he reached the broad landing with its stone arch in the shape of a feathered serpent. Passing beneath it, Winken continued down the curving corridor beyond until he stood in front of a pair of tall double doors. They were among the few such devices in Tower Mountain, made of gleaming dark wood and inlaid with chips of colored stone. The feathered serpent design was repeated here; the jeweled eyes of the fabulous creature seemed to glint malevolently at Winken. The young dancer’s courage nearly failed him as he stood before the doors. He wanted desperately to turn and run back up the Stair to the safety of his rooms. But his concrete fear for his father outweighed his inchoate fears on his own behalf. He must keep his bargain with Lord Tyaar. **My lord, I’m here,** he sent.

**Enter,** came the cool, formal reply. The doors swung open at Winken’s touch.

The dancer could not recall having been in Lord Tyaar’s chambers since what he thought of as the old days, eights-of-eights-of-eights ago, the days when they had not been Lord Tyaar’s chambers alone. The room he entered now was strange to him, though not unfamiliar. Spare, elegant, beautifully furnished, orderly and cold, it reflected the image of its occupant. It was also empty. Glancing about nervously, Winken saw that of the several arches in the walls of this room, one had its heavy embroidered curtain partway open. He stepped toward it even as Lord Tyaar’s unmistakable sending came from beyond it, repeating, **Enter, young Winken. And be so good as to close the curtain behind you.**

The room beyond the arch presented quite a different picture than the antechamber. It was a good deal larger, for one thing, accommodating with spacious ease not only a semicircle of shaped stone couches sumptuously cushioned and lined with silk, and a pair of long, narrow tables of similar fashion curving along the sides, but a raised platform at the near end, close to the door, lit by four tall lampstands. The walls were clothed with rich figured hangings in glowing, dark colors touched here and there with gold, while rugs of similar workmanship covered the floor. The whole atmosphere of the room contrasted with that of the outer chamber. That was cool, formal, restrained, most probably of Khepri’s design. This room was the work of another shaper, almost certainly Beliel. It was formed in curves rather than angles, curves that bespoke luxury and sensuality. And power…

Tyaar was waiting for him. When Winken turned after drawing the door-curtain closed, he saw the Tower Lord reclining on the largest, central couch, elegantly at ease. The couch’s high sculpted back enhanced him as a frame does a portrait. He wore a long, flowing robe of deep crimson silk, open to the waist and belted with a gold-embroidered sash. Near at hand was a low table of carved wood with a polished veinstone top; on it was a tray of cold meats and fruit decoratively arrayed, an ornate gold wine flask and two jeweled goblets. Tyaar’s head inclined graciously as Winken came into the room. “Welcome,” he said, a satisfied smile curving his lips. He beckoned to Winken with one long hand. The dancer hurried across the room to kneel before him.

“I have come, my lord, as you commanded.” Winken stumbled a little over the formal phrasing.

“As we agreed,” Tyaar responded, the faintest hint of correction in his voice. He reached out and took Winken’s chin in his hand, gently but irresistibly raising the dancer’s eyes to his. “For this night, you are mine, by your own consent,” he said softly.

“Yes, my lord.”

With a slight nod of acknowledgement, Tyaar released his grasp on Winken and briefly ran his fingers through the dark brown curls atop the youth’s head. Then he motioned toward the small stage at the other end of the room. “Dance for me.”

Winken rose and slowly walked to the stage, fumbling with the clasp of his cloak. He let the garment fall as he mounted the low platform. He stood for a moment breathing deeply, then sank to his knees with his arms crossed over his bowed head, the beginning posture for the dance. There he paused, momentarily at a loss. What about the music? Though he knew the steps of Mikail’s choreography, he was not at all sure he could bring them to life in silence. But as he knelt there, irresolute, the ethereal notes of a kitar came wavering through the air, unmistakably Ceyte’s touch. The music sounded distant, perhaps coming from behind that drawn curtain. Winken did not look to find out; at the moment he did not care. The music was there, supporting him. He melted into it.

For a magic time there was nothing but the dance. He was pure flame, flickering motion that rose and fell, scintillating, beautiful, untouchable, never at rest. Weightless, he trod the air, no more substantial than the notes of the kitar that marked his movements. The point midway through where he had been interrupted before, till now branded in his memory, passed by without a thought. His whole being was concentrated on the pattern as it moved toward completion. Too soon, yet at precisely the right moment, the dance concluded. The figure of flame hung poised in midair arabesque, then drifted slowly down. It touched ground, held the pose for a heartbeat longer, then collapsed with a last crashing chord into a small, glowing ember, snuffed out.

For several long breaths Winken huddled at center stage, coming back to himself. At last he ventured to raise his head. Tyaar was looking at him with a smile of unmistakable approval. Encouraged, Winken rose and bowed to his lord.

“Perfect,” the Tower Lord pronounced, softly but distinctly. “I am most pleased.”

At these words of praise, Winken beamed, the grim undertones of his rendezvous with Tyaar momentarily forgotten in a rush of pleasure. “I’m glad, my lord,” he said simply.

“Most pleased,” Tyaar repeated, rising to a sitting position with fluid ease. He held out a hand to Winken. “Come. I am sure you will wish to refresh yourself after your exertions.” He gestured toward the low table.

Winken glanced around the room, looking for Ceyte, but the musician was nowhere to be seen. “Isn’t Ceyte joining us?” he ventured to ask Tyaar.

The Tower Lord shook his head. “Ceyte has done what I requested of her and has already departed. Come, sit by me.”

“Yes, my lord.” Winken crossed the room without hesitation this time and allowed himself to be drawn down to sit at Tyaar’s side. “Shall I pour wine for you?” The Tower Lord nodded. Accepting the filled goblet from Winken, he resumed his reclining position along the back of the couch while the youth perched on the edge. Winken sipped at the ruby-colored liquid in his own goblet and his eyebrows went up in pleased surprise. Tyaar observed his reaction.

“Do you like it? It is a special vintage of Kela’s, redberry wine. It has lain long untouched in his cellars. We are the first to taste it.”

He smiled at Winken, who replied, “It’s very good, my lord.”

They drank the dark red wine and shared Dantum’s cold platter in silence for a while. Winken began to relax, almost forgetting his earlier fear. Then he glanced up and saw Tyaar’s ice-blue eyes on him, half-lidded, contemplative, expectant. Feeling a sudden chill, he hurriedly set down his wine. “I feel quite refreshed now, my lord,” he blurted. “Would—would you like me to dance for you again?”

Tyaar’s eyes took on a gleam of amusement. “Indeed, yes.” He caught Winken’s wrist as it retreated from the wine cup. “But not upon that stage.” He paused, then with careful fingers undid the jeweled clasp that fastened Winken’s filmy top at the wrist, and let it fall to the floor. With a tiny gasp, the youth instinctively tried to pull away. Tyaar’s grip tightened to the edge of pain; his eyes came up to lock with Winken’s. “Come now, young Winken,” he said in a voice like sheathed steel. “You agreed to serve my pleasure this night. Were you really in any doubt as to the nature of that pleasure? You may play the fool with others, but pray do not do so with me.” Abruptly he let go of Winken’s wrist while continuing to hold him with his eyes. “However, if you wish I shall release you from our agreement. You may leave now … and Peysol will have three days to produce the blue, no more. Is that what you wish?”

Winken swallowed hard, fighting tears. “No, my lord,” he whispered. Holding out his hand to Tyaar, palm up, he went on in a stronger voice, “I’ll—I’ll do whatever you ask of me.”

Tyaar smiled. “Very well. The agreement stands.” Half rising, he laid his hands on Winken’s shoulders. The dancer felt a brief, warm glow radiate from those hands before they busied themselves with unfastening the shoulder clasps of his top one by one, the other wrist clasp, the belt. The Tower Lord laughed low in his throat as the sheer garment fell away.

“Really, young Winken,” Tyaar murmured in the dancer’s ear, gently massaging his bare arms and shoulders, “if you did not wish to arouse my desire, you should not have danced so prettily for me. I am, as you know, drawn to perfection … in all forms.” His hands eased Winken down onto the couch so that the youth lay next to him, gazing up helplessly into his eyes. “Pure, unsullied perfection,” Tyaar went on, tracing the lines of Winken’s face with light fingers. “Who in all the Tower is better able to appreciate it than I? Did you mean to spend it one day for some other’s delectation? That would have been a pity. No one else would have been able to savor it as I shall. Not Doleera, not Jand—” He paused. “I did consider inviting them here to observe my conquest. They might perhaps have learned something. But that would have lacked subtlety. They will know of it in good time. For now I shall have you to myself. You shall be mine utterly, completely…”

He rose to his knees above the supine youth, lifting the gold circlet from his head and setting it aside, loosening the embroidered sash of his robe and letting it slither to the floor. For a moment he towered over Winken, a magnificent figure in flame-washed ivory and gold, outlined in shimmering crimson. Then he lay down next to him and began gently, unhurriedly to caress his face and neck, his chest and belly, exploring every fingerbreadth of exposed skin. As he did so, the warm glow he had touched Winken with earlier began to radiate from his fingers, gradually segueing from simple delight into intense pleasure. The youth trembled and moaned softly as if in pain. The Tower Lord chuckled at his reaction. “Too much, too soon?” he inquired ironically. “Your pardon. A joining should never be hurried, especially one’s first. Once broached, that sweetest liquor may never be tasted again. For that reason I shall taste of you long and deeply and in many ways this night, my little dancer. You are the last of such vintage in the Tower, you know.”

Tyaar’s skilled hands resumed their play, this time joined by lips and tongue. At some point during the ensuing interval, the flame-colored tights vanished—how, Winken never knew. When he surfaced, gasping and shivering, from the sea of sensation into which he had been plunged, he was aware only of Tyaar’s smiling face hovering over him. “The very last,” the ancient elf mused. “Once this is gone, there will be no more. A pity, in a way…” The silken voice trailed off. For a moment the ice-blue eyes looked inward. Then Tyaar’s smile widened. He bent over Winken once more and laid a long hand on either side of his upturned face. Laughing as if at some private jest, he locked his gaze full onto the youth’s wide blue eyes.

There were many long moments of silence before Winken’s cries resumed.

 

Peysol’s blond head came up with a start and he straightened in his chair, thinking he had heard his name called. He glanced around the deserted workroom and saw nothing but the shifting shadows cast by the lamp that burned on one corner of his cutting table. The clothier sighed and rubbed his eyes. He had dozed off, that was what had happened, perhaps fallen into a dream. He should put away his needlework and get some sleep, either on the bed in the back room, or upstairs in his own chambers with Leravie. The latter was the more enticing possibility.

“No time for sleep!”

Peysol tensed. “Widget!” The taunting voice seemed to come from the corner where two tall mirrors stood at right angles to each other, but the polished surfaces reflected no one. The clothier was not surprised. The owner of the voice would be crouched within the walls somewhere.

“No time for sleep, not in the Tower,” the hidden rockshaper went on. His voice seemed to come from a different quarter of the room this time, somewhere above the sketch table. “The Tower’s lord does not sleep, oh no. He’s too taken with his toy, pretty little dancing boy. Keeps him dancing all the night, dancing till the morning light. Oh ho!” The voice chuckled, pleased with its rhyming. Peysol sat perfectly still, barely breathing as he listened.

“He dances, oh yes, dances to Tyaar’s tune,” the Mouse continued, seemingly right over Peysol’s head. “He dances as he has never danced before, not for lover, not for friend. But for father, yes he will—to save him, he will dance all the night long.

“Who does little Winken love,  
Let him by his action prove.  
For you he will unlock his treasure,  
Give it all for Tyaar’s pleasure.”

For a long time after the riddling, sing-song voice from the walls faded into silence, Peysol sat motionless, head bowed, staring with unseeing eyes at the tumble of silk across his knees—the many-shaded blues of the cloak he was sewing for Lord Tyaar. Once his fingers clenched on the fabric, making ripples of lamplight shiver across it, but in the next moment he let it fall as his hands dropped helplessly into his lap. He did not sleep again that night.

 

“He won’t talk to me. Maybe he’ll talk to you,” Ban said to Peysol. The two of them were climbing the Grand Stair side by side, heading for the chambers of Peysol’s family.

Ban was a little surprised at how easy it had been this morning to extract the clothier from the chaos of his workroom, where elves and humans alike bustled about or crowded into corners, busily constructing and trying on the many costumes that would be worn at the Midwinter Feast. Peysol might almost have been expecting Ban, so quickly did he respond to the jeweler’s sending. When he had finished giving the last few instructions to an assistant and made his way over to the door to speak to Ban, he already seemed tense and worried, even before Ban told him about Winken. Nor did the younger elf imagine Peysol’s worry to be over any aspect of his work. When it came to costuming, neither Ban nor anyone else had ever known the clothier to be anything other than cheerful and confident. He must already know something was wrong, probably Widget’s doing. Ban had not seen his uncle and soulbrother since the night before, when he told Widget his apprehensions about Winken, but no doubt the Mouse had been busy.

It was Peysol who started them up the Grand Stair after Ban related the story of Winken’s strange behavior the previous night. He listened and said nothing while Ban told him of dropping in on Mikail’s rehearsal today, hoping to find Winken there and have a word with him, only to learn that the young dancer had not shown up for practice. Impelled by Mikail’s request as well as his own renewed worry, the jeweler had gone on to his friend’s rooms to discover all the curtains drawn and the chambers dark. The only response to his repeated sendings had been an anguished **Go away!**

“Do you have any idea where he was last night?” Peysol asked. “Sharai told me this morning that he didn’t come to her recital.”

“When Kaethe and I came to fetch him,” Ban replied carefully, not looking at the older elf, “it looked like he was dressed for dancing. Frith invited Emerel and Kaethe and me up to his rooms for a drink afterwards—about midnight, that would be. Winken wasn’t there then, because we sent for him. By the time we left he hadn’t come back. That’s all I can tell you.” In truth Ban had a fairly good idea where Winken had been, his original suspicions confirmed by Widget’s actions. But he dared not confide this to Peysol, lest the clothier suspect Ban’s connection with the Mouse. Much as Ban liked and trusted his friend’s father, that secret was far too dangerous to reveal to anyone. “Frith might know when Winken came in, if he wasn’t asleep by then,” he added. Peysol nodded without speaking.

When they arrived at the family’s chambers, Peysol beckoned Ban to accompany him through the central arch. Inside they found a plump, dark-haired human woman using a long-handled broom to attack cobwebs along the molding of the spacious, high-ceilinged common room, while maneuvering carefully around the small loom in the corner. She turned when the two elves entered and made a little bobbing bow. “Ammollah, have you seen Winken today?” Peysol asked her.

“No, Honored One, not to say _seen_. Nor the Little Air Spirit didn’t bespeak any breakfast this morning,” the motherly woman replied. “I had Arrie bring him up a tray anyhow and took it in to him, but he was still abed, I think. His room was dark. Nor he hasn’t come out since.” Peysol nodded, frowning slightly, and turned toward the arch that led from the central room to Winken’s chambers. The woman looked at her master questioningly for a moment, but when he paid her no further attention went back to her work.

**Winken?** Peysol sent. There was no reply. After a few heartbeats he tried again, locksending this time, his fair brows knitting with the effort. There was another pause. Then he said quietly to Ban, “He’s there, and he’s not asleep, but he isn’t answering.” For a moment his expression tightened as if he were in pain. Then he stepped forward and pushed open the door curtain, again beckoning Ban to follow him into Winken’s rooms. The jeweler was mildly astonished. Peysol was not normally one to walk into anyone’s rooms uninvited, even his own sons’, any more than he normally interfered in their personal lives. It said something for his concern at this moment that it outweighed his deeply ingrained respect for others’ privacy.

In the outer chamber, they saw an untouched tray of fruit and rolls sitting next to a guttering oil lamp on Winken’s sketch table. The only other item that caught their eye was a crumpled dark cloak lying in a corner of the room near the doorway to the bedroom. No light came through the beaded curtain. But as Peysol stooped almost instinctively for the cloak, the sound of muffled sobs drifted from the inner room. Peysol immediately straightened and headed for his son’s bedroom door. This time he did not ask Ban to follow.

 

The room within was dark, the lamps unlit, the shaft leading to the outside securely shuttered for Coldtime and heavily curtained. Once Peysol’s eyes adjusted, however, the lamplight leaking in from the next room allowed him to make out the outline of the rumpled bed along the far wall and the huddled shape in the middle of it.

“Winken.” When he spoke, the form on the bed twitched slightly and another tiny sob escaped it. Peysol crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge. When he reached out to touch Winken’s shoulder, the youth flinched away. Undaunted, Peysol spoke quietly but firmly to his son. “Winken, I want you to tell me what has happened.”

“N-nothing.” The word was a choked whisper.

“Don’t be ridiculous, son. ‘Nothing’ wouldn’t put you into this state. Try again.”

“Father, please don’t,” Winken moaned. “Please go away.”

“I’d be a fool if I did. I’ve left you alone too often, Winken. I want to know where you went last night, and what happened to you.” The older elf kept his voice steady, neither accusing nor pleading. For long moments he waited before Winken answered.

“I—I went to Lord Tyaar’s chambers,” the youth whispered. “I—I danced for him. He wanted—the dance I did at the party.”

Winken paused. After a moment Peysol asked, “And that was all?”

“Y-yes.”

“Then why did you flinch when I touched you just now?”

For a few breaths Peysol’s question, delivered in the same calm, unaccusing tone, hung quivering in the air. Then all of a sudden Winken burst into shuddering, heartbroken sobs. This time when Peysol reached out to touch him, he flung himself into his father’s arms, clinging to him like a child shaken awake from a nightmare and not yet wholly free of its toils. Peysol held him for a little while, stroking his hair, before repeating his question, this time in sending. **Winken, what happened?**

The tale came out in a rush, a jumble of sending-images that grew increasingly disjointed and torturous. Going to Lord Tyaar’s chambers—the dance—the wine—Tyaar’s touch—what he had done to Winken, what he had made Winken do, the pulsing nightmare crescendo of pleasure/pain/desire/terror that at its peak seemed to wrest the living soul from the youth’s body and hurl it into fiery oblivion. Long afterward he had woken to find himself alone in the chamber, his aching body shivering beneath the cloak that had been spread over it. He had dressed in blind haste and fled back here, to bury himself in darkness and isolation, trying to shut out memory…

Peysol held Winken close and did his best to control his own trembling. The onslaught of remembered sensation had been almost too strong for him, even at second hand. He shrank from imagining how such an experience must have affected his untried son. Would Winken ever again be able to face the thought of joining without fear? Unaccustomed tears stung the older elf’s eyes. Winken’s deft avoidance of sexual involvement had been a game before, a source of endless, if slightly exasperated, amusement to his father. From now on it might no longer be a game.

For a while all Peysol could do was hold his son, murmuring meaningless endearments that expressed far more by their tone than their words. After a time Winken’s weeping subsided. Peysol pulled away a little, took the youth by the shoulders and met his tear-filled eyes. “Son, I want you to know that it doesn’t have to be that way. Joining is—it should be—a joyful thing. Curse it! That was why I never wanted Jand or Doleera to ‘initiate’ you. They’ve forgotten that. But it’s true…” Peysol ached to share with Winken those memories of early passion and desire fulfilled, and the more recent ones of slowly revealed and ever-astonishing love, that lightened the secret places in his own heart. But Winken was not ready to receive those yet, the wounds of his spirit too fresh for belief or acceptance. All his father could offer the youth now was the cool comfort of words and the undemanding warmth of his embrace.

At last Peysol ventured to ask the question that had gnawed at him ever since Widget spoke to him the night before. “Winken, why did you go to Lord Tyaar’s chambers? Did he invite you, or did he command you to come?”

A brief, sharp struggle crossed Winken’s face before his eyes dropped. He murmured, “We made an agreement.”

“What kind of agreement?”

“I asked a—a favor … and he said he didn’t grant favors without return.”

“You asked— What did you ask of him?” Peysol was not sure he wanted to know what favor would be worth the price Winken had paid, but Widget’s hints, puzzling as they were, had been enough to tell him that he needed to know. When the youth did not reply for a moment, he persisted, “Winken?”

All at once Winken burst into fresh tears, covering his face with his hands. His answer came in disjointed phrases. “I heard … the blue … three days … not enough … knew you’d never ask him for more time … and then he’d— Oh, Father!” Winken threw himself into Peysol’s arms again, clutching him fiercely as if afraid to let go. This time Peysol could only hug him back without speaking. The full meaning and truth of Widget’s riddling words were now laid bare. Crazy the renegade rockshaper might be, obscure and convoluted his speech certainly was, but no one had ever been able to call the Mouse a liar. No, the lie in this case was not Widget’s.

“Oh, Winken. Oh, my precious, precious boy. You didn’t—” Peysol could go no further. He could not find the words to tell his son how cruelly he had been deceived. At last he was able to say, fighting to keep his voice steady, “Winken, I want you to promise me you’ll never do something like this again, not without talking to me first. Will you promise?” Winken nodded, sniffling. “Good. Now, I want you to come and have something to eat, then get your tail to rehearsal. Ban’s been worried about you. As for Mikail, he must be chewing the scenery by this time.”

Winken smiled a little at that, but then his face shadowed. “Should I tell them what happened?” he asked in a small voice.

“You don’t have to tell anyone,” Peysol said firmly. “You needed to tell someone and you told me. That’s all that’s necessary. Apart from that, the less said of it the better and the less you brood over it the better. You’ve done nothing you need be ashamed of, but no one else has to know. All right?” Winken nodded again, looking relieved.

When the two of them emerged into the common room, Ban was waiting for them there. The jeweler was glad to see his young friend up and about again and wisely refrained from questioning him. Instead he told him about Sharai’s recital the night before, and passed along some of Frith’s choicer witticisms while Peysol had Ammollah bring Winken’s breakfast into the dining alcove. The generously heaped tray held more than enough food for the three of them. Only later did Ban remember how uncharacteristically silent Peysol had been throughout the meal, as if in thought too deep for speech.

 

Two pairs of eyes, bright with anticipation, watched from behind filmy curtains as Peysol entered the parlor he shared with Leravie. They followed him as he crossed the room and leaned over the table of polished stone shaped out of the wall near their hiding place, rummaging through the pigeonholes above it. Cries of frustration were barely held in check as he apparently found the parchment he was looking for, spread it out on the flat top of the table and surveyed it from a standing position. At last, however, the clothier frowned, reached for a paint jar and brush, and sat down on the cushioned stone seat in front of the table.

A loud and very rude noise exploded from the seat. Peysol shot to his feet just before two elfin females, giggling madly, tumbled out from the bedroom—a tall one with close-cropped honey-brown curls and a smaller one with a wavy bush of hair the color of sunset. He regarded them in shock for a moment. He cautiously lowered himself to the seat again, producing another rude noise and another gale of laughter from the females. His lips twitching with amusement, he rose and faced them, arms crossed. “All right, Sharai, Ceyte. What’s wrong with my chair?”

Ceyte looked at him with wide, guileless amber eyes, plumping herself down on one end of the loveseat on the other side of the bedroom doorway. “Wrong with it? Nothing’s wrong with it. You just have a new cushion. Didn’t you notice?”

“Maybe it’s alive,” Sharai suggested from the other end of the loveseat, where she sat with her long legs tucked under her, staring innocently off into space. “Maybe it doesn’t like being sat on anymore. Or it could be something you ate…”

Peysol affected to ignore their renewed mirth as he picked up the fringed satin cushion from the stone seat in front of his desk and examined it. It did not take him long to find a slit in the fabric. From it he extracted a small kite-shaped device of waxed cloth with a kind of mouthpiece at one end and a leather-backed vent at the top. Holding the thing on his palm, he looked inquiringly at Ceyte. “It’s a new kind of noisemaker I’ve invented,” the musician informed him, grinning. “I wanted to show it to you anyway, and when Leravie told me she thought you needed cheering up—”

“I’m surprised she isn’t here to see the fun,” Peysol commented dryly.

“Someone had to decoy you up here,” Sharai pointed out, “and let us know you were on the way. You wouldn’t expect us to hide out in your bedroom till nightfall, would you? Or even longer. I know you, my friend, when there’s a festival in the offing. Sometimes you don’t come home for days.” Her eyes twinkled. Sharai and Peysol had Recognized in the early days of the Tower and lifemated for a time. Though they had separated once their sons were grown, they retained considerable fondness for each other. Fortunately, Peysol’s former mate was extremely fond of Leravie as well.

“We promised her sending pictures,” added Ceyte. “We’ll be able to give her some good ones, too. You should have seen your face!”

Peysol chuckled, imagining how he must have looked, as he studied the device in his hand. He squeezed the object between his fingers to produce the noise, and noted how the arched ribs inside it puffed it out again as soon as he released it. All of a sudden his laughter faded and a speculative gleam appeared in his blue eyes. He looked up at Ceyte. “Have you got any more of these?” he asked her.

“Quite a few. I’ve been experimenting with them—different pitches and so forth. Why?”

“I wonder if I could borrow one or two. I may have a use for them.”

“Really? What?”

“I’d rather keep that a secret, if you don’t mind.”

Ceyte shrugged. “Have it your way. Do you want to come to my rooms and get them? You can take your pick of noises,” she added with an impish grin. The clothier returned her smile and assented. But Sharai, who knew him well, had the sudden disquieting impression that behind his smile, Peysol was not laughing at all.

 

The Midwinter Feast was an occasion for pomp, pageantry, protocol and decorous revelry. In the Tower’s distant past it had been a yearly festival, but as it grew more and more elaborate and the concomitant preparations more time-consuming, it was decided to hold it only once every eight turns in order to give those responsible a rest in between. With a few unheralded exceptions it was attended by every elf in the Tower. The stately Feast Hall was the setting, with its double row of shaped pillars that rose to a lofty gallery and thence to the vaulted ceiling. The banquet was expected to be sumptuous, varied, and prolonged; dress was traditionally rich rather than revealing, as befit the season. For entertainment later there would be court dancing in formal figures. For now, it was sufficient diversion for those elves already in the Hall to study the decorations and to watch the later arrivals make their entrances.

As the Tower inhabitants arrived in ones and twos and the occasional larger grouping, it was generally agreed that Peysol had outdone himself. Though the decorations and costumes were the work of many minds and hands, elfin and human, his was the underlying design and guiding intelligence behind the finery. The theme this year was Winter itself in all its frosty splendor, colored in white and gray and myriad shades of blue, accented here and there with the black of bare branches and the crystalline sparkle of snow. The banners hanging between the pillars, the cloths on the tables, the elaborate garb of the guests all echoed each other in icy harmony. Even the lamps burned with a bluish tinge.

“Brrr! If I didn’t know better, I’d swear someone arranged for a draft. Or is that drift? I’m getting chills in my eyeballs.” Sharai clutched her stole-draped shoulders and shivered theatrically. Beside her, Ceyte grinned.

“Jheredd’s been busy,” she remarked. “Look at all the lace. Doleera’s practically covered with it.”

“That’s about all she’s covered with. I like Vayree’s outfit better. Those stand-up collars with the crystal dust on them seem to be popular.”

“Whew, look at Shadaln! It must have taken her the whole eight to embroider that gown!”

“Even Razmak looks presentable!” Sharai exclaimed, scrutinizing the tall, white-haired elf’s mottled dark gray robes. “I wonder how that was managed.”

“Easy,” Ceyte replied merrily. “Kesik just made sure the outfit was at the front of the closet.” Both elves laughed.

“Here come Mikail and Nalkor—day and night! Nalkor is Peysol’s despair,” Sharai observed. “'Oh, don’t worry about me, Peysol. My hawkrider’s silks will do fine.’” She shook her head. “All that potential—wasted, as Peysol keeps saying.”

“Nalkor takes after his father,” said Ceyte. “I don’t think Eylar’s changed clothes since he Declared. But speaking of Peysol, where is he? Should we expect an Entrance, do you think?”

“I doubt it. From what Leravie says, this is going to be one of those times he lets others carry the show. His triumph will be Tyaar’s outfit. Peysol’s design _and_ construction—I hear he’s been working day and night on it, and he hasn’t let anyone else touch it. That’s probably why he’s late.”

“Putting our good lord into it,” Ceyte guessed.

Sharai nodded. “Right. Attention to every detail, that’s our Peysol. Ah, there he is.”

The two musicians watched as Peysol entered the hall through one of the side doors, Leravie on his arm. His costume, a close-fitting jacket and hose, was elegant but restrained, pale ice-blue with lace trim at collar and cuffs. Leravie’s gown was a deeper shade of the same blue with a more elaborate trim. They made a striking couple, Ceyte always thought, almost exactly the same height, he fair and she dark. Behind the two of them, Frith, Ban, Kaethe and Winken had all piled in together. Winken still had not recovered his usual bounce, Ceyte noted with an inward sigh. Something was definitely preying on that boy’s mind. “Do you have any idea what’s been bothering Winken lately?” she asked Sharai.

Sharai snorted. “So you noticed that too. No, I have no idea. When I ask him, all he says is, ‘Nothing, Mother!’” Sharai’s blue-green eyes widened ingenuously in imitation of her son. “I spoke to Peysol about it the other day when I was in for my fitting and he wouldn’t say anything either. Best blue-eyed innocent act I’ve ever seen out of him, and that’s saying something. No one ever tells me anything,” she complained, scowling across the room at her former mate. All at once her scowl changed to a frown of puzzlement. “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?”

“Peysol’s wearing his Declared badge.”

“Well, of course he is. So am I. We all are.” Ceyte briefly touched the medallion she wore, a swirling mixture of metals that resembled a hawk flying through a howling-wind. “It’s Midwinter Feast, remember?”

“No, I mean he’s _wearing_ it,” Sharai insisted. “Smack-you-right-between-the-eyes wearing it.”

Looking more closely at the costumer, Ceyte realized what Sharai meant. At first she had taken the saltire of deeper blue across the front of Peysol’s jacket for a mere accent, intended to match Leravie’s gown. Now she saw the sparkling silver-gilt of Peysol’s rising hawk medallion mounted in the center of the silken cross. She bit her lip in puzzlement. It must mean something. Every detail of Peysol’s dress was always calculated for effect. “Any idea why?” she asked Sharai. Her friend only shook her head, her expression mystified.

The two of them continued to follow the costumer’s progress as he made his way over to one of the long tables in the center of the hall. There he ceremoniously saw Leravie seated before turning toward the high table, where his own place was set among the other Declared. He paused by Ban’s chair, laying a hand on the back of it. Perhaps a sending passed between the two, for the jeweler glanced up at Peysol, then over at Winken who sat next to him, listening to something Frith was saying. By the time Ban turned back, Peysol had gone. In a few more heartbeats he was slipping into his seat on the dais between Ayla and Mikail.

“We’d better take our places,” said Sharai. “I think just about everybody’s here.”

Ceyte nodded. “See you later.” She glided off toward the dais while Sharai found a seat at a table with several other members of the dance troupe.

The Tower’s population was now mostly seated, the twenty Declared in their ritually appointed places at the crescent-shaped high table, the rest of the elves at the long tables in the center of the hall. Malra, juniormost of the Declared, came gliding in at the last moment, knocking his over-elaborate collar askew on the edge of the door curtain and earning glares from Eylar and Shadaln as he slid into his seat at one end of the crescent. The seneschal stood tall and stately at her place near Tyaar’s ornate high-backed chair at the center of the table. She carefully surveyed the hall, making sure everyone was present, while the murmur of conversation faded into silence. All eyes turned expectantly toward her and toward the broad entranceway at the far end of the hall, behind the high table. Satisfied, Shadaln seated herself, then gave a nod to the two gold-torced humans who stood on either side of the doorway. At her signal, the two privileged humans swept back the curtains.

Lord Tyaar’s entrance had all the icy splendor of an advancing glacier. His floor-length robe was of the deep blue color he most favored, with sleeves hanging nearly to the ground and trimmed with narrow bands of silver. But the true glory of his costume was the magnificent, many-shaded cloak upon which Peysol had spent so much toil. A high filigree collar of silver wire, powdered with crystal and adorned with gems of palest blue, rose up to frame the Tower Lord’s gold-crowned head and aristocratic face. The shoulders of the cloak were adrift with snow-white feathers, jeweled here and there with diamonds, while the long hem was trimmed with white fur. The layered folds between were a frozen cascade of blues that shimmered when he moved. He seemed the lord of winter itself as with a stately tread he approached the high seat.

Mikail, sitting next to Peysol, flicked a glance at the costumer, intending to send covert congratulations on a stunning effect. To his surprise, he sensed an alert tension in the other elf’s posture, though it did not show in his face. It was as if Peysol was waiting for a further effect to come off, one he was not quite sure would work as expected.

But no further effects seemed forthcoming. Tyaar continued to advance until he reached the high table and stepped into place in front of his thronelike chair, sweeping the cloak behind him. For a few breaths he looked over his assembled people, smiling a little but not enough to alter his air of cool, self-assured dignity. Then he sat down.

The acoustics in the Feast Hall were excellent. The extremely loud, extremely rude noise that shattered the expectant silence echoed from one end of the great oval room to the other. The hush that fell in its wake was compounded of the caught breaths of seven-eights of elves. All eyes were fixed on the Tower Lord in horrified fascination. Tyaar shifted in his seat and another, even louder noise resulted, of the same timbre but a different pitch. This time there was a stifled snicker from Malra’s end of the high table, abruptly cut off as Chimreh, sitting next to him, clamped a hand over his mouth. Ceyte’s hand was pressed hard to her own mouth, her amber eyes enormous in her ashen face.

Lord Tyaar, his features set in a frozen mask of outrage, rose slowly to his feet, his ice-blue eyes sweeping the crowd. No one moved or made a sound until the Tower Lord’s chill gaze reached Peysol. The costumer rose to meet it, slim and elegant; the frosty lamplight silvered his pale hair and the rising hawk that glittered on his breast. “Allow me, my lord.” Leaving his place at the table, he stepped over to Tyaar and began to examine the cloak, running his hands over the quilted silk. “Aha.” His fingers found something, squeezed. A third time the blatting noise rang out. Peysol looked up at Tyaar. His words carried as clearly as the sound had, despite the characteristic lightness of his voice. “I believe I’ve found the trouble, my lord. A regrettable error in workmanship. My fault entirely, of course.” His face was white, but he was smiling just a little as he continued. “Shall I instruct Dantum to fill the cauldron with boiling oil? Or would you prefer melted lead?”

The silence that followed approached absolute zero. Tyaar’s gaze was locked with that of his Declared, who returned it unflinchingly. Peysol’s smile had a tiny but unmistakable hint of challenge in it. Mindar the weapons master, sitting stunned at the end of the table, recognized his elder brother’s expression as the one he often wore when taking a risky gamble for high stakes. But what gamble was worth this risk—challenging Lord Tyaar in front of the entire population of Tower Mountain?

It was Tyaar who broke the silence. Reaching up, with a few deft movements he unclasped the cloak and let the offending garment slide to the floor. In a low, cold voice he said, “I will see you in my chambers, Peysol. Now.” Whirling, he swept from the hall, through the curtains still held open by the stunned human guards. Peysol threw a single glance over his shoulder across the hall, to where a white-faced Ban sat next to a terrified Winken with a restraining hand clamped onto the youth’s shoulder. Then the clothier turned and followed his lord without a word.

 

The walk from the Feast Hall to Lord Tyaar’s chambers was not a long one. Peysol covered the distance riding a wave of sheer nerve, running before the storm. The storm broke the moment he stepped over Tyaar’s threshold and faced the Tower Lord across the blue-carpeted floor of the antechamber within.

Only once before had Peysol been the recipient of a blacksending, many eights-of-eights ago when in an inattentive moment he mentioned the name of Lord Tyaar’s former lifemate, Lady Tascha, in his lord’s presence. That had been no more than a slap, though it was enough to ensure that Peysol never made such a slip again. It was nothing compared to the black fire that burst behind his eyes now and quickly spread to every nerve in his body. He fell to his knees, clutching his head, and only the immaterial hand that seemed to clamp down upon his vocal cords prevented him from screaming aloud.

**No outcry, wardrobe master,** came Tyaar’s mind-voice, icy with controlled fury. **I do not wish to make an example of you—yet.** As suddenly as it had begun, the blacksending ended, leaving only minor aftershocks of pain. Unable to rise just yet, Peysol remained kneeling on the edge of the woven carpet, gripping his upper arms in an attempt to control his body’s shivering and somewhat astonished to be alive.

The Tower Lord’s voice came like a lash of cold steel. “How dare you, how _dare_ you perpetrate such an indignity upon your sworn lord?”

Peysol’s head snapped up, meeting Tyaar’s gaze with a blue blaze of unrepentant anger. He hurled back, “How dared you, my lord, perpetrate the deception you did upon my son?”

Tyaar’s face went still. The “What?” that escaped his lips sounded almost involuntary. Evidently Peysol’s accusation had been utterly unexpected. _Did he think I wouldn’t care?_ Peysol thought bitterly. _Or was the ravishing of my son such a trivial thing to him that he’s already forgotten it?_

After a short silence Tyaar spoke, no trace of anger remaining in his voice. It sounded as if he was choosing his words with care. “I did no lasting harm to Winken. Quite the contrary.” Then, as Peysol’s eyes kindled and he started to get to his feet, the Tower Lord held up an admonitory hand. “Nor did I take anything from him that was not my due as lord of this Tower.”

Peysol rose and regarded Tyaar. “You command the loyalty and absolute obedience of every elf here,” he acknowledged, “mine and that of my blood not least. That has been true since the day of my birth.” His words were a veiled reminder of a time long past when the life of an elfin infant, born a season too early, rested in the hands of the most gifted healers in the tribe. “Had you merely requested Winken’s presence in your chambers that night, I—” He bit his lip. “—I would not have done what I did.” His voice rose fractionally. “What I cannot accept, even from you, my lord, is the deceit. You played upon Winken’s fears, traded on his credulity. He sacrificed himself to you on my behalf because he believed I was in danger of my life. You accepted that sacrifice. I have not dishonored you, my lord, any more than you have disgraced yourself. I merely saw to it that you looked the part, as it is my calling to do.” The costumer smiled slightly.

“A calling which you exercise when you are bidden to do so, wardrobe master,” Tyaar replied, drawing himself up with a renewed flash of anger. “You overstep your bounds, concerning yourself with my honor.”

“Do I? I am Declared, sworn to be a champion of the Tower. You are the lord of the Tower; what touches upon your honor touches all of us. But I will readily admit, my lord, that it is the honor of my own blood I am most concerned with at the moment. My son was willing to sacrifice himself for me. Can I do less for him?”

Lord Tyaar studied him. “And thus you deliberately court my wrath.” The Tower Lord’s voice was cold. “I fail to see how your death would redeem your son’s honor.”

“By making the lie into truth,” Peysol replied. “You see, I’ve forced your hand, my lord. After so many eights-of-eights I have finally, and rather spectacularly, failed to fulfill a commission to your entire satisfaction. You have two choices now. You can follow through on your threats and kill me, proving that Winken didn’t bargain for a phantom, that the danger he feared was real and his sacrifice of worth. Or you can expose the lie for what it is and admit to your deceit. For if you do not, I shall.”

The slight blond elf remained still, unflinching, as the tall figure slowly approached him and stared down into his face. **Do you so hunger for death, Peysol?** Barely leashed power burned behind the sending, destroying power, the power to deal unbearable pain or to end it forever.

Peysol’s return sending did not waver, but there was a hint of tears in his eyes. **No, my lord … but I am willing to pay the price for my own part in the deceit, however unwitting. And I would find it preferable to the ending of our friendship.**

The smoldering anger in Tyaar’s eyes was quenched. He scanned his Declared’s set face for several searching heartbeats. Then he turned away abruptly and began to pace. “You set a clever trap, Peysol,” he said after a few moments. “Perhaps I should have you out after the Mouse. But I have learned a few tricks myself over the turns … and I propose a third alternative.”

“What alternative is that, my lord?”

The Tower Lord paused and looked straight at Peysol. “Undo the sacrifice.”

Peysol stared at Tyaar in utter bewilderment. “What?”

“It would be quite simple, really. You see, what Winken may have told you was not what happened here that night.”

Anger flared in Peysol’s voice once more. “Curse it, Tyaar, he _sent_ to me—!”

Tyaar held up a hand. “Peace! I am not calling your son a liar. I have no doubt—no doubt whatever—” Here the Tower Lord smiled. “—that what he sent to you is what he believes to be true. Nevertheless it is not what happened … save in Winken’s own mind.” Tyaar studied Peysol’s blank face for a few moments, then continued. “I shall not deceive you, Peysol. At the outset I had every intention of pleasuring myself with Winken, especially after I saw him dance so marvelously. I also had in mind putting a stop to Jand and Doleera’s rivalry, though that aim, it seems, has come to naught. Winken has been surprisingly reticent about our night together.”

“I told him he needn’t tell anyone.”

“Mmn. It matters little. As I was saying, I fully intended to ravish your beautiful son. I had already begun to test his responsiveness, which was considerable. But I changed my mind. And then I changed his.”

Tyaar’s eyes became veiled. “I suspect you have little notion, Peysol, of the riches of the elfin mind, not to mention the powers of one truly skilled in its use. Few in the Tower do, and none are as skilled as I, though I seldom need to exercise those abilities. What Winken experienced under my control was in the nature of a dream, one ultimately of his own devising. I entered his mind, removed his inhibitions, probed his deepest and darkest desires, and played them out before his inner eye. It was a highly educational experience, you may well believe, for me as well as for him. Most interesting … and quite beneficial, I should think, in the long run. It really is unhealthy to keep one’s desires suppressed as long as Winken has. Afterwards, a slight touch of Talent here and there was all that was necessary to make the illusion totally convincing—not only to Winken, but to anyone he might tell of his experience. Including Jand and Doleera… That was to be the cream of the jest, you see, to have them and all the Tower believe that I had tasted Winken first, while in truth he remained untouched.” Tyaar sighed. “That is what I offer you, Peysol, if you truly wish it. It would be the work of a few moments for me to enter Winken’s mind and remove the overlay of illusion I put there. He would then remember nothing of our encounter, or only those parts of it that were innocuous. In effect, his sacrifice, as you call it, would never have taken place—as in fact it did not, not as he remembers it now. Is that an acceptable alternative to your dying in unspeakable agonies?”

“I’m not sure.” Peysol’s voice was tight with strain, his face drained of color. Tyaar’s calm confession of what amounted in his mind to psychic rape, the violation of his son’s mind and spirit, shook him far more profoundly than Winken’s original account. A sender of only average ability himself, he had never realized such a thing was possible, even for Tyaar. He wondered how many elves in the Tower did; few, his lord had said. Peysol turned away from the Tower Lord and gripped his upper arms in an unconscious echo of his reaction to Tyaar’s blacksending earlier. His thoughts were an anguished whirl of inner voices and memories.

_Does your control truly extend so far, my lord?_

_O merciful High Ones … Wyn? Xylene? How many others?_

_“The body is only a garment. The spirit is the true self…”_

_Winken … mind-shaped…_

_“Within, we are all free souls … he understood that once…”_

_Lord of my body and spirit … savior and protector … my lord and my friend…_

_“…to lay down my life and all that I hold dear…”_

_No surety of freedom this side of death…_

_“The risk is half the fun…”_

_Can a second wrong possibly make things right?_

_My son … never to face joining without fear … never to know the love I have known…_

Peysol whirled on the Tower Lord. “All right, Tyaar, curse you. Do it,” he ground out.

Tyaar’s eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

Peysol swallowed. “I mean—I accept your alternative, my lord. For my son’s sake.” _Give him back his innocence in exchange for mine._

The ancient elf merely nodded. “Very well. Call him, then.” When Peysol hesitated, he added, “Unless you wish me to do so.”

Peysol took a deep breath. “No, I’ll do it. If I’m to be a party to this—operation, I’d better face up to the fact.” A strained smile appeared on his face. “Besides, I may have to tell Ban it’s all right to let him come. I asked him to take care of Winken for me, in case anything happened.”

He closed his eyes and concentrated for a few moments. When he turned back to Tyaar, his face and bearing had begun to come under control. He nearly lost his composure again, though, when Tyaar remarked, “You do realize, Peysol, that even the reality could have been … undone?”

Peysol struggled between half-hysterical laughter and a renewed inward shudder before replying wryly, “My lord, I have given up trying to keep track of reality in this situation.”

It was not long before Winken appeared at the door. The young dancer took one look at Tyaar’s impassive face and flung himself across the room to kneel at the Tower Lord’s feet. “Please, my lord—” he began desperately.

“It’s all right, son,” Peysol told him.

“Calm yourself, young Winken,” Tyaar seconded coolly. “Your father is in no danger. Regard me.” Peysol forced himself to watch as Winken’s eyes came up to meet Tyaar’s and all expression drained from the youth’s face. “Can you hear me, Winken?” Tyaar asked.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Your father is in no danger,” the Tower Lord repeated. “He never has been. Remember that.” In that moment his voice was that of the kindly and gentle lord of Tower Mountain who had made a jest of playing the tyrant. In the next moment it shifted back into cool remoteness. “Do you remember coming to my chambers two nights after the Declared’s party?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Tyaar’s gaze probed deeply into Winken’s. “It is my wish that you forget all that happened that night and all that led up to it, save what I shall now tell you. You came to see me the day after the party, to apologize for the disruption of my entertainment. At that time I requested that you come to my chambers the following night and perform for me the dance you had prepared for the party, since I wished to see it without interruption. You did that. You came to my chambers the following night and danced for me most beautifully. I was pleased, very pleased indeed.” Tyaar smiled with genuine warmth. Then he went on, “After you had danced and refreshed yourself, you became sleepy. You fell asleep on the couch. When you awoke, I had gone. You then returned to your own rooms and went back to sleep. That is what I wish you to do now, Winken. You will return directly to your own rooms and go to sleep. When you awaken, you will remember only what I have told you. Of your coming here this evening you will remember only that you were assured of Peysol’s safety. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Go, then.” Winken rose lightly, his face calm and untroubled, and walked out of the room as if in a trance, not even glancing at his father. Peysol watched him go without saying anything.

“Are you satisfied, Peysol?” Tyaar asked after a few moments.

Peysol turned to him, his face shuttered and expressionless. “I suppose I must be.”

“He will remember nothing save what I told him. He will know nothing of what was done. That secret will be ours alone, Peysol. I know I can depend upon your discretion.”

Peysol looked up at that, startled realization dawning in his eyes. After several moments he said carefully, “You told my son I was in no danger.”

“None whatever.”

“Oh? I think you’ve forgotten something, my lord. There is still the little matter between us of the faulty construction of a cloak…”

Tyaar made an exasperated noise. “You are a difficult elf to please, Peysol. But never fear—I have a solution to your little conundrum.” He lifted his head and a sending lanced from him. **Mikail. Attend me in my chambers.**

The tousle-haired dancer appeared at the door of his uncle’s rooms so promptly that he might well be suspected of lurking outside on the landing. Glancing at Peysol with a mixture of worry and relief, he said, “You sent for me, my lord?”

“I did.” Tyaar drew himself up imperiously. “As you know, Peysol has gravely displeased me. For his offense I have sentenced him to die.” The Tower Lord’s mouth curled up. “He himself has disallowed any petition for his life by his son. Do you, Mikail, wish me to spare him?”

“Of course, my lord,” Mikail answered, somewhat bewildered. “He is my friend.”

Tyaar’s smile deepened. “So be it. How can I refuse the plea of one who has been as a son to me? Go with my pardon, Peysol.”

The costumer bowed. “My lord is gracious. I thank you.”

“I do not destroy what is mine without good reason.” Tyaar stepped to Peysol’s side and laid a hand on his shoulder. The warmth of his touch dissipated the last lingering traces of pain from his earlier blacksending. The Tower Lord shifted to mind-speech, locked in to Peysol’s mind alone. **But know this. Should you ever attempt such an indignity again, I shall not be so lenient. Is that understood, Peysol?**

Peysol met his gaze levelly. **It is understood, my lord.**

“You may go,” Tyaar said aloud. Peysol bowed once more and exited, accompanied by Mikail. Only after they had gone did Tyaar realize what Peysol had not said.

 

“Turn a little more, please, my lord. There. Thank you.” The wardrobe master extracted a final pin from his mouth (it was a running joke among the dance troupe that Peysol’s Talent was the ability to speak intelligibly around a mouthful of pins) and fastened the trailing end of a broad strip of gold braid he was affixing to the hem of Lord Tyaar’s new party robe. He got up, dusted off his knees, and stepped back to survey the Tower Lord, who stood in front of the twin mirrors of Peysol’s fitting room. The clothier caught Tyaar’s eye in one of the mirrors and made a circling motion with one hand. The tall elf slowly revolved in place while Peysol checked the fall of the loose, sleeveless robe from all angles.

After the debacle of the Midwinter Feast, which had been followed by more than an eightday of flying rumors and wild speculation, things were finally starting to quiet down in Tower Mountain. It helped that none of the principal characters in the drama had said a word about it since. Nevertheless, there was more of an audience in Peysol’s workroom today than was usual for a routine fitting. It might have been coincidence; Leravie was often in the workroom anyway, Mikail needed to talk to the clothier about the costumes for his latest dance, and since Winken was to have a major role in the production, his presence was no surprise either. At the moment Leravie sat in a chair near the corner of the cutting table, her attention divided among Lord Tyaar, the kidskin slipper she was beading, and Winken, who was perched on the table perilously close to her trays of beads. Mikail leaned on the table’s edge, his pose relaxed as he waited for Peysol to finish with his uncle and return to their conversation.

After Tyaar had made a complete turn, Peysol nodded, satisfied. “That should do it, my lord. If you’ll take that off—mind the pins!—I’ll finish it tonight and have it ready for you tomorrow morning.” He stepped forward to take the robe from Tyaar and draped it carefully over his arm.

Lord Tyaar nodded, then drew himself up to his full height and fixed the wardrobe master with a hawklike gaze. “Very well, Peysol, I shall return tomorrow. If I am not satisfied with this robe thereafter—” He paused, raising a forefinger for emphasis. “—I shall send an eight of the Torcs to your rooms in the middle of the night to drag you from whatever pursuits and in whatever state of undress you might then be discovered in. I shall instruct them to carry you down here and stake you out on the floor of your own fitting room, after which I shall send in the entire dance troupe armed with giant hawk feathers and jars of honey. When they have thoroughly anointed your squirming body…”

As he listened to his uncle elaborate upon his proposed plan of execution, Mikail gradually realized that the gaze Tyaar kept fixed on Peysol had a curious searching quality to it. Peysol himself stood quietly listening with the robe over his arm, his eyes downcast and his expression almost demure.

“Then, when you are completely covered with meal from head to toe,” Tyaar went on, “four of the Declared will fly you out of the main eyrie down to the humans’ barracks, where you will be dumped in the middle of the hen coop and pecked to death by an eight-of-eights of ravenous chickens!”

There was a pause after Tyaar concluded his threat, during which everyone in the workroom seemed to be holding their breath. Then Peysol looked up, his blue eyes sparkling. His voice quivered as he replied, but it was the quiver of suppressed laughter. “What would you call that, my lord? The death of a thousand clucks?”

Mikail struggled to keep his own mirth silent. Next to him, Winken was trying valiantly to look scared, but the hands pressed over his mouth barely succeeded in holding in his giggles. Leravie had her eyes fixed on her work and was stitching madly away with her shoulders shaking and her lips clamped shut.

“I shall certainly endeavor to fulfill your expectations, my lord,” the wardrobe master went on, “as usual.”

Tyaar nodded, satisfied. “I have every confidence in you, Peysol. Till tomorrow, then.” He turned and swept from the room.

Peysol glanced at the trio near the cutting table as he went to hang up the robe. The half smile that met their silent merriment was genuine. It was a relief to see Winken cheerful and animated, the haunted shadow gone from his eyes as if it had never been. It was strangely reassuring to have Lord Tyaar renew the old joke. But Peysol and his lord shared far more than a joke now. The clothier understood Tyaar’s tacit message: everything was back to normal, as it had always been, as Tyaar wished it to be.

Yet Peysol knew that for him, nothing would ever be the same again.


End file.
